When New Hampshire Governor-Elect Maggie Hassan gets sworn in on January 3, she’ll have a heroine by her side: Chief Warrant Officer Charlie Morgan will lead open Hassan’s inauguration with the Pledge of Allegiance

Morgan, a member of the New Hampshire National Guard, was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer in 2008. Her wife, Karen, needs Morgan’s benefits to help care for their five-year-old daughter. Of course, DOMA prevents the military from issuing those benefits to the family.

Morgan is one of the plaintiffs in a Servicemembers Legal Defense Network lawsuit against DOMA. She recently announced that her doctors have given her just months to live.

For her part, Governor-Elect Hassan has long been a champion for our community: It’s thanks in large part to her work in the Senate that the state passed its marriage equality bill in 2009.

It’s so sad that this crap is still an issue. We’re going into 2013 and STILL fighting for equality! I feel particularly bad for our service men and women. Here they are,fighting to maintain our freedom,in a country who’s motto is for “liberty and justice,FOR ALL”,yet they are fighting their own war against their own country,just to have the same rights as everyone else!What a slap in the face! It’s like saying,you can die for your country but your country doesn’t give a shit about you! Sad and totally unacceptable!

Jan 2, 2013 at 7:42 am · @Reply ·

Michael Bedwell

While huge Bravas are in order for the Governor-elect and Charlie and Karen, NO, DOMA does NOT prevent the military from issuing any benefits to the family. That’s the simultaneously inexplicable and unconscionable side of this story: WHY OS-SLDN continues to tell the public and both gay and mainstream media that NO “survivor benefits” are available to Karen because of DMOA when they KNOW that isn’t true. THEIR OWN current “Freedom to Serve” guide, Section V. Subsection B2: Benefits for Same-Sex Partners, reads:

“Service members have always been able to designate a person of their choice for certain benefits. Under DADT, service members lived with the reality that designating someone of the same sex might raise eyebrows and possibly lead to investigation. Now, service members should feel free to designate a same-sex partner for any of the following:

– Beneficiary of Servicemembers Group Life Insurance (SGLI) and Veterans’ Group Life Insurance (VGLI) payments
– Receipt of unused contributions from Post Vietnam-Era Veterans Assistance Program (VEAP) and the Montgomery G.I. Bill Death Benefit, as long as the person is also designated as an SGLI beneficiary
– Beneficiary of Thrift-Savings Plan (TSP)
– Retirement annuity under the SURVIVOR Benefit Plan (SBP), as long as the service member is not in an opposite-sex marriage and does not have a dependent child.”

That is not to say that there aren’t other benefits denied [though the question remains which would actually be because of DOMA and which are because of ARBITRARY Pentagon policy], but when is someone going to ask them WHY they continue to perpetuate the fiction than none are available? Thank you.